World Cleanup Day on the La Défense esplanade on September 18, 2025

World Cleanup Day is back in Paris La Défense on Thursday, September 18, 2025. For its fifth edition, a new cigarette butt collection event is being organized on the La Défense esplanade.

From noon to 3 p.m., company employees and volunteers are invited to collect, weigh, and meet up around this initiative. For this fifth edition of the event, two guests are expected on the plaza. 

During their lunch break on Thursday, September 18, 2025, employees, students, and residents of the business district will be able to participate in the new edition of World Cleanup Day. Ludovic Franceschet, better known on social media under the pseudonym Ludovicf_off, and Estonian ambassador Viljar Lubi will be there to support them.

As every year, the goal is to collect as many cigarette butts as possible to clean up the plaza. The collected cigarette butts will then be recycled by the company Cy-clope.

For more information on the collection

In 2024, World Cleanup Day brought together 150 participants from around ten companies. The volunteers managed to collect 55,000 cigarette butts. Thanks to their recycling, 27,500 m3 of water was saved from pollution by these cigarette butts, which is equivalent to 11 Olympic swimming pools.

Founded in 2017, the World Cleanup Day France association was created by a group of citizens with the aim of promoting World Cleanup Day in France. Since then, it has been accredited by the non-governmental organization Let's Do It World. This has enabled it to carry out three major projects: World Cleanup Day, Digital Cleanup Day, and Mégothon.

To find out more about the association

This year, waste collection events are being organized from September 17 to 21, 2025. The aim is to raise awareness of litter pollution and its impact on the environment, public health, and biodiversity. Since 2018, thanks to World Cleanup Day, more than 25,000 cleanups have been organized, with an average of 180,000 participants per year. As a result, 6,800 tons of waste have been collected over the years.

Practical information:
Thursday, September 18, 2025, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.
La Défense forecourt